Verizon says GSM carrier can buy CDMA carrier

*Cough* at&t *Cough* Alltel *Cough*

What Verizon is saying is that they want full ownership of their company before they expand it. They know at&t will fight for Alltel because they have the $$, and after the negotiation rumors went around, you have to think that there are some talks going on......

 

Gee wiz. I'm glad Verizon gave their blessing. Like the rest of the world really cared. That's like GM saying it was ok when Chrysler bought AMC/JEEP. Who cares if GM liked it or not, and who cares if Verizon likes the situation either?

-Jay

 

Yeah I'm not quite sure what the point of this is. Of course it is doable, as is a CDMA carrier buying a GSM carrier, and a CDMA carrier buying an iDen carrier....it is just a matter of whether it is worth it.

 

A GSM carrier buying a CDMA carrier is as doable as a GSM carrier buying a TDMA carrier.

 

Wirelessly posted (LGE-VX8300/1.0 UP.Browser/6.2.3.2 (GUI) MMP/2.0)

I think 1 they are buying it or 2 they feel if some one dose it will be 0 effect on them

 

Jones, with the recent price increases and emerging market control, which is approaching monopolization levels (AT&T and Verizon), do you think it makes sense to reduce competition at this point? Even if consolidation happens, I don't think it's good for you and me, the consumers. So I say America can use one more competitor. That's why I am against anyone buying Alltel. I rather them becoming a national carrier.

 

I for one would not complain if Verizon Bought them out it would sure help me on coverage.

 

Yea, didn't AT&T buy Primeco in some texas markets a while back? And old AT&T bought the old USCC markets in the south (although I think those were TDMA at the time). Cingular here in WI (which was on Ameritech's old network) had CDMA running for a short time, until Ameritech got bought by SBC, making them Cingular.

I would like to see US Cellular and Dobson Cellular One get together for some reason. I think US could make a great GSM carrier. The interesting part of that would be (purely for an example) that the Milwaukee Metro area would have no CDMA on 850 anymore.

 

VZW would have to divest all of Utah except for Vernal and SE ID as well.

 

But if they did that, who would do what? USCC is CDMA, Dobson GSM. Which would they go with? I guess it depends on who is bigger and who buys who.

 

I was along the lines of thinking USCC would buy Dobson. That, IMO, would be even more likely to happen should a GSM carrier buy alltel. I could personally see USCC doing something like alltel is now, and run both GSM and CDMA in some places for roamers. USCC running GSM would be a sight to see, but they sure did well with their old TDMA network. That still hands down beats the crap outta their CDMA voice quality even.

 

Well I am ready for at&t to buy Alltel in the Carolinas and get their 850 freq and make better use of it browani: ). Lets move forward with the purchase.

 

I think they don't have enough National carriers, there may be too many regional ones but if they merged together & became a National carrier then that would be ok.
In retrospect I still think the Cingular/AWE & Sprint/Nextel mergers were bad for the consumer as far as pricing goes and less choices, but network coverage & quality have been improving on the Cingular side & will for the Sprint side as they keep adding synergy sites & towers.

I again would like to see a Alltel/USCC or Dobson merger happen to make them closer to a national carrier or throw some other smaller carriers in if needed. Of course for us in the NYC area it wouldn't help since we would still be stuck with the 4 carriers, unless 1 of these other carriers won or will get spectrum in the past/next auction to cover these area's that would be missing.

 

I agree that the mega mergers have helped consumers in one way- native coverage. Prices have, undoubtedly, gone way up because of this. Sprint still is the more consumer oriented one out of the new "mega-merged" carriers, but that will probably only last until Sprint has(if they ever will) caught up to the big two carriers, customer wise.
Alltel/USCC would create a nice carrier with more expansive coverage and I honestly don't think that a carrier needs to be completely national in order to survive. ALLTEL and USCC by themselves may be too weak/small, but if the smaller carriers joined forces, they could survive and create a great network.

 

I agree with Sprint being more customer oriented, but lately they seem to be following the #1 & 2 carriers on some ideas & rules.

As for Alltel & USCC yes they would do well without being a National carrier, but think for the consumer 1 to 2 more National Carriers would help big time.

Again maybe between what spectrum was won in the last auction & with the 700 Mhz auction coming up, if they did merge they could focus on getting the spectrum in the bigger cities they don't have license & become a National carrier, heck they could afford to spend more in these area's since they wouldn't need it in other area's of the country.

 

No doubt more national carriers would help consumers- I am, however, not sure how likely it is to happen to see a regional carrier become truly national. I could, however, see smaller regional carriers to merge and create large carriers that would do fine, even without serving all of the large cities, but you are right, having more national carriers would definitely help- I'm just not sure how likely it is to happen.

 

Yeah I know it's not a likely thing, but it's more of a wish on my part & I am sure others.

I do think we will see more regional carriers starting to merge, since it's about right in the markets & economy for it to happen.

 

I hope so- and you are definitely not the only one with wishful thinking. BUT with the way things have been going I see the opposite to what we are saying/wishing: Big carriers will gobble up the smaller ones, period.

 

I agree here. As far as there being "to many" national carriers is nonsense. The less competition, the worse for Joe Q. Consumer. Alltel/USCC, or Dobson merging would almost certainly make Alltel a quote on quote National carrier....not to mention one with both metro and excellent rural coverage. Would they still be missing in key large markets...yes, but they could still survive in my opinion. The Verizon's and Sprints of the world will still rely on Alltel's rural coverage for years to come. I think if Alltel chooses to stay in the wireless world, they could do so effectively by the previously mentioned mergers and buying some spectrum in the upcoming aution. Question is does Alltel want to sell....still waiting on that one.

 

You know, you bring up a very good point. Verizon and Sprint rely on alltel a lot for rural coverage. For this reason alone if I was a large GSM carrier (Like Cingular or TMO) I'd consider buying them and converting them to GSM. If you took away a large chunk of Verizon's rural coverage I think it would hurt them.

-Jay

 

But only in limited area's where they bought Western Wireless & heck if I was AT&T or T-Mobile, I would want a heck of a offer from both Verizon & Sprint/Nextel to keep the CDMA system up & running for them to roam on.

 

Yes, but my point is that if you take away the rural CDMA roaming, or raise its prices then your company would appear to be more competetive.

-Jay

 

That is true. Although the GSM network is basically a piece of junk just to get roaming revenue. It is not as large in comparison to Sprint and nextel's Iden problem. But we'll see what happens I guess....

 

I thought I read somewhere that if Alltel was bought out then it would be before June or something along that lines? I heard also that if Alltel gets bought out then it would be 'out of the blue' because they could get into alot of trouble if word got out that they were being bought, because their stock would skyrocket higher or something like that??? Am I some what on the right track here??

 

The GSM network isn't, "a piece of junk," but it is there for the sole purpose of getting roaming revenues from GSM carriers (both national and international.) It is true that Alltel does not sign up customers for the GSM network.

The only Alltel customers using GSM are the ones who converted from other providers (and I seem to remember that all of those customers had their service interrupted at the end of March if they didn't switch to CDMA.)

 

I will both agree and disagree with you. The American market has too many small networks, but not enough national networks. The U.S. could easily support more national networks; we have five networks in the UK with a fifth of the U.S.'s population (not counting MVNOs).

If you want better competition you have to have the networks competing with each other right across the board, not just in certain areas of the country. If every network has to compete with every other network for every single customer in the country you should see better deals.